Well said J.D.
So based on actual evidence the basic design characteristics of an English War Bow would be the following?
1) Typically over 90# draw weight with many well over 100# being drawn 30" to 32"?
2) The bow bends throughout it's entire length?
3) It is typically a single stave but there are examples of backing being used?
4) Yew was the wood of choice but there were examples of other woods like elm being used?
5) The cross section was oval/rounded. Not a high stacked belly or a flat back right?
Help me nail this down. Bring facts and evidence to the table.
1) Yes. We can extrapolate weight from common traits of design and performance requirements. By the half of 14. century plate armour was availble to wealthier noble and plate parts to most of the nobility. By the end it was standart. Around 1450 it was common even for infantryman and lots of older italian and german armour sees infanterization. Expect 2 big leaps in technology. One is with the integration of bows into english military system, that would be first rapid increase of weight over short period of time, together with standartised usage of hornnocks. Since heavy hunting bow at the time was around 75#, think that around 100# has become normal for war. Mind you, there are older bows from the area more heavy than this. Second big leap probably occured by the time of Azincourt, where necessity of shooting against plate armour dictated further increase of arrow weight and also strenght of the bow. Reasonable quality armour of the time does resist anything under 125# and 3 oz arrow. (There was a troup of men at arms at azincourt marching through arrowstorm, but since that was probably 500 best armour sets on battlefield together with shields it cannot be looked upon as "standart".)
Its obvious that the bow can only develop to certain point as the limitations of human body and also requirements of training become unfeasable on larger scale. See paralel in Selbys stunning book "Chinese archery". I dont expect much improvement or increase of weight past wars of roses, by the time of MR the whole field was stagnating for some time. Arrow in naval warfare sees some development in 16. century. (Well if the bow is on its limits, you can only improve amunition)
2) There is many shapes recorded in contemporary pictography, though the extreme can be discarded as bad quality items. We shall not forget that they too were capable of making badly tilered bows. Full tilered bows do seem to be slightly shorter than the rest in Froissart chronicles. On MR bows the bend in middle portion happens only in last 3´´ of pull or some.
3) No backings since late 16. century. They probably laminated yew on yew when decent staves werent at hand at the end of 15. and there is written continental account of this. But we have no bows until 17. century. Two bows of yew backed with single ash and elm rings are in Archery hall in Edinburg.
4) Listed yes, but we dont have any of the bows. Me and my buddy make some respectable ash longbows in 100#+ range and they do not come to the same shape as MR bows and the wood has to be specially sellected. Elm for cheapo bows and Laburnum for expensive and flashy bow was wood of choice. I think that "Hazel" listed as wood for bows is etymological bogus. (Generated from "Wytch" - which is not wytch hazel, but wytch elm)
5) Yes. Mostly. I m sure we could find exception, but the staves were from small diameter logs, means they have been crowned and the edges were rounded. There is some variation of profile on MR bows from which the profile with small flat surfaces on sides of staves is most distinctive. The genesis of such profile during making of the bow is well known and described by Roy King in Hardy´s book.
J.
